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Plant City, Florida, 1885-1940: A Study in Southern Urban Development
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| Title | Plant City, Florida, 1885-1940: A Study in Southern Urban Development |
| Author | Kerlin, Mark W
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| Keywords | History
Florida
Plant City
Hillsborough County
Urban development
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| Abstract | This study investigates the development of Plant City, Florida as a railroad town developing on the Southwest Florida frontier from 1885-1940. The study chronicles the town's origins and economic, political, and social development in relationship to the broader historical theories of southern urban development, specifically those put forward in David Goldfield's pioneering work, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region 1607-1980. Goldfield contended that southern cities developed differently than their northern counterparts because they were not economically, politically, philosophically and culturally separated from their rural surroundings. Instead, they displayed and retained the positive and negative attributes of southern society and culture, including a commitment to maintaining a biracial society until the 1960s, an affinity for rural lifestyles and values among urban residents, and an economic dependence on outside markets and capital. Since Goldfield derived his findings from research that centered on the cotton producing regions of the Old South, this study sought to determine whether the tenets of his thesis applied to the urbanization process in the frontier areas of Florida, a region often considered an anomaly to the greater South. In the end analysis it was determined that Goldfield's theory generally fits Plant City with some exceptions derived from regional differences found in Florida. |
| Adviser | Leckie, Shirley
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| Publisher | University of Central Florida |
| Degree | M.A.
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| Degree Discipline | Department of History
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| Degree Grantor | Arts and Sciences
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| Degree Program | History
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| Graduation Date | 2005-12-01 |
| Type | Master's thesis
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| Access Level | Public - Allow Worldwide Access
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| Release Date | 2005-12-01 |
| Repository | University Archives
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| Repository Collection | Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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| Identifier | CFE0000617 |
| Access Link | http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000617 |
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